Motion's rugged new J3400 all-in-one tablet PC is being billed as "the ultimate computing tool" for anyone wo needs a "robust device" for both indoor and outdoor use. And it's hard to argue that claim, given that it comes equipped with two battery compartments for all-day battery life and a 12.1-inch widescreen outdoor display with Motion's View Anywhere technology.

"The J3400 was developed based on more than seven years of tablet PC experience, and feedback from customers across industries," said David Altounian, president and CEO, Motion Computing. "It is a mobile computing device with the capabilities our customers are demanding – a powerful processor with a compact rugged design that supports users who must be productive whether in the field or in the office."

From a hardware standpoint, the J3400 comes with an Intel Core 2 Duo SU9400 (1.4GHz) or SU9300 (1.2GHz) Ultra-Low Voltage (ULV) processor, up to 4GB of RAM, shock-mounted 80/120GB HDD or 74GB SSD, 2MP camera, GPS, multi-card reader, Wi-Fi, and various other goodies.

Helped in part by its rubberized coating, Motion says its J3400 comes IP52 and MIL-STD-810F rated and is tested for real-world, field-ready conditions.

In the past year, Linux has shown quite a bit of mainstream maturity, finally giving Windows users a viable alternative that is much more user friendly than has been the case in years past. And how appropriate, given that the Linux kernel has just turned 15, taking one step closer to becoming a young adult.

According to this log file, the Linux kernel reached version 1.0 on March 13, 1994, which means this past Friday the 13th officially marked its 15th birthday (some would argue that Linux was born in 1991, as suggested here). It was another two years before Tux the penguin was created, and in November 2000, the first Linux-powered cellphone was announced (IMT-2000 in Korea).

Any predictions on when or if Linux will usurp Windows as the mainstream OS of choice?

Recently Via announced their VX855 Media System Processor that allows their Nano, C7 and Eden processors to support 1080p video. This entertains the possibility that Via will provide a more attractive option an Intel and Nvidia when it comes to platforms to base a netbook off of.

The VX855 is designed for mobile PCs and comes with an HD video processor that gives smooth, hardware accelerated playback of high definition videos encoded in H.264, MPEG2/4, DivX and WMV9.

“For the first time, system developers have an ultra low power media system processor that delivers high bit-rate HD video to small form factor and mobile devices,” said Via’s VP of Marketing, Richard Brown. “The VIA VX855 opens up exciting opportunities for several PC segments, particularly the mini-notebook category that will now be able to offer true 1080p HD video playback.”

No solid information as to when we can expect to see this powerful little chip make its way into netbooks and nettops alike, but if its as good as they say, we should see it making a splash relatively soon.

Back in October 2008, Intel expressed concerns over AMD's announcement it would split into separate design and manufacturing firms, saying such a move would might run afoul of the Patent Cross License Agreement the two signed in 2001. The Agreement, which expires in 2010, has restrictions related to the transfer of licenses and patents, and according to Intel, "AMD cannot unilaterally extend Intel's licensing rights to a third party without the Intel's consent."

Now that the spin-off is complete, AMD said today that Intel plans to pull its 2001 agreement within the next 60 days, that is unless AMD addresses concerns surrounding AMD's joint-chip foundry, Globalfoundries. AMD meanwhile says it "strongly believes that the company has not breached the terms of the cross-license and Intel has no right to terminate the company's rights and licenses under the cross license."

AMD said the parties are trying to resolve the issue through mediation, however both AMD and Intel contend that the other has breached the 2001 agreement.

"The power of the DMCA compels you! The power of the DMCA compels you!" That was essentially the mantra muttered by Amazon, who invoked the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to convince MobileRead.com to remove instructions on how to use a hack to circumvent DRM on the Kindle eBook reader.

"Although we never hosted this tool (contrary to their claim), nor believe that this tool is used to remove technological measures (contrary to their claim), we decided, due to the vagueness of the DMCA law and our intention to remain in good relation with Amazon, to voluntarily follow their request and remove links and detailed instructions related to it.," MobileRead.com forum moderator Alexander Turcic said in a post.

The hack involved a small Python script called kindlepid.py, which ultimately made it possible for Kindle owners who followed the site's instructions to be able to read books legally purchased from other e-book stores on the Kindle. MobileRead.com neither created nor hosted the 'offending' script, but posting a tutorial was enough to draw the legal ire of Amazon, who threatened the site with a lawsuit if it didn't "immediately remove" information relating to the computer utility.

Early solid state drives (SSDs) suffered from a number of negative characteristics preventing them from finding use in mainstream applications. These included low capacity, surprisingly poor performance, reliability concerns, and high prices. Recent advances have addressed many of these concerns, but comparatively high prices still plague SSDs. Not for long, says Samsung, who expects SSD pricing to fall in line with HDDs in the next few years as flash memory prices continue to fall.

"Flash memory in the last five years has come down 40, 50, 60 percent per year," said Brian Beard, flash marketing manageing for Samsung Semiconductor, in a phone interview with CNet. "Flash on a dollar-per-gigabyte basis will reach price parity, at some point, with hard disk drives in the next few years."

Samsung, who makes both SSDs and HDDs, points out that hard disk drives have a fixed cost for its various parts, such as $40 or $50 for the spindle, motors, PCB, and cables, and that adding capacity or making them faster really doesn't add much incremental cost to the drive. But with SSDs, which also have a fixed cost for the PCB, case, and controller, adding capacity entails adding more flash chips, which adds to the fixed cost of the drive. "For example, if the spot price of the flash chip itself is $2, a 64GB drive is going to cost $128 just for the flash and then you would add the fixed cost of the PCB an the case," Beard said.

According to Beard, the sweet spot for for SSDs this year will be 64GB moving to 128GB on the business side, and 128GB moving to 256GB on the consumer end.

See that person sitting in the cubicle next to you? One of you is probably using P2P networks to download music, movies, and software, statistically speaking. According to not one, but two recent studies in Canada and Spain, nearly half of all internet users are doing it.

The results of both studies were pretty much in line with each other with roughly half of the respondants indicating that they regularly use file-sharing software, nearly a third admitting to using P2P for dubious purposes, and as little as just 1 percent saying they find downloading copyrighted files is "not a big deal."

"The results of these two reports clearly show that public opinion is changing in favor of P2P users," writes TorrentFreak.com. "Unlike 10 years ago, people are now used to unlimited access to all kinds of information, much of it thanks to Google."

But while the general public might be coming to terms with P2P, content studios and ISPs aren't as accepting. Other recent studies have shown that P2P is responsible for over 60 percent of internet upstream traffic, while also accounting for half of North American bandwidth. In some cases, using P2P software is forbidden, such as AT&T Wireless, who said its "terms of service for mobile wireless broadband customers prohibit all uses that may cause extreme network capacity issues, and explicity identify P2P file sharing applications as such a use."

The apparent state of <insert WoW class that’s constantly nerfed and obviously in need of buffing here> may have led you to believe that Blizzard’s exceedingly affluent staff doesn’t want to hear from you. Well, given the nature of the mega-publisher’s current contest, it’s pretty obvious that you were wrong. See, Blizzard only wants to hear from one of you.

The contest, which is open to aspiring word jockeys all around the world – from London to the Bay – invites Blizzard’s biggest fans to prove their mettle not with sticks or stones, but with words, the most powerful force in the entire universe. In order to qualify, your piece must be 3,000-10,000 words long and – as expected – set in one of Blizzard’s three fictional worlds.

Should your modern classic catch the eyes of Blizzard’s finest Lorecrafters (note: not a real job title), you’ll be flown out to Blizzard’s offices in Irvine, California where – and this is just a pet theory of ours – you’ll be surreptitiously assassinated by the same people who judged you worthy of setting foot on Warcraft, Diablo, and StarCraft’s holy birthing grounds.

Why? Simple. According to the contest rules, upon arriving at Blizzard’s pad, you’ll be given a replica Frostmourne sword (to defend yourself, obviously – you know, honor and all that) and a sumptuous meal (presumably a last meal, but also a possible attempt to weigh you down during the inevitable conflict). But wait – you’re probably wondering why Blizzard would go through all of this trouble to help you, a simple fan, meet the real Diablo? Well, after little to no research, we’ve surmised that – like a paranoid dictator – Blizzard’s current writing staff is afraid of competition, and would like to hold onto the swankest gig on earth for as long as possible.

So yeah, don’t enter the contest. We’ll, uh, just go ahead and take the fall for you. Without other entrants, we’re sure to “win” – if you could even call it that – and then we’ll put a pointy, meticulously sculpted end to all of this nonsense once and for all. Wish us luck.

We have been keeping our eyes on a disturbing new trend within the movie and music industry over how to deal with online copyright disputes, and the news continues to worry privacy advocates. The idea of booting people off the internet without any recourse sounded harsh when we first read about it, but when it was an ocean away in Australia it didn’t raise as many eyebrows. The approach defiantly received more mainstream attention however when the RIAA began proposing similar actions in the US, and now the world is watching to see what the French do with a new proposed law called “Création et Internet”.

If passed into law, the legislation would deal very harshly with any form of file sharing, be it video or audio. Alleged offenders will first receive an e-mailed warning, followed by a registered letter, and lastly with a 3-12 month suspension of internet service. The law will also prevent users from switching ISP’s to avoid punishment, and even public hotspots will contain filters. Additionally, home users will be required to lock down home networks, and will be legally responsible for its security.

In return the French will start receiving DVD’s in a more timely fashion, and music DRM will be drastically scaled back. John Kennedy, CEO of the Global Music Trade Group trumpeted this arrangement as a fair trade off, while Jérémie Zimmermann, co-founder of a France based open internet alliance was less than impressed. “This is emblematic of how a government legislates with the same ignorance and archaism as the entertainment industries that promote the 'graduated response.' They are, like this law, doomed to fail."

Experts on both sides feel this bill has a good chance of passing into law, and if that happens, it’s only a matter of time before it starts to spread again.

If you haven’t done so already, make sure your Adobe reader has checked for, and downloaded the latest updates. Adobe has finally released a patch for the zero day scripting vulnerability in its PDF software. The patch for version 9 hit the net a bit earlier than expected, but not a moment too soon to combat this now critically exploited weakness which has been in the wild now since December 2008. The patches for Version 7 & 8 are still planned for March 18th and users of this version would be advised to either upgrade to 9.1 or consider Foxit Reader.

The news was posted by Adobe blogger David Lenoe. "Today, we posted the Adobe Reader 9.1 and Acrobat 9.1 update, which resolves the recent JBIG2 security issue (CVE-2009-0658), including the 'no-click' variant of the vulnerability." "We encourage all Adobe Reader users to download and install the free Adobe Reader 9.1."

For those that haven’t been following the details of the exploit, the vulnerability is a result of an array indexing error in the processing of JBIG2 streams. Hackers have found a way to corrupt arbitrary memory using the PDF format and take control of compromised systems. The lesson learned here if we didn’t know it already, don’t take candy, or PDF’s from strangers.